This book is dedicated to a few of the women I'm proud to call "friend":Jodi Dabson Bollendorf, Kate Buker, Toni Kelner, Dana Cameron, Joan Hess, Eve Sandstrom, Paula Woldan, and Betty Epley. All of you have meant something different to me, and I feel grateful to know you.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThere are a few people I've thanked before and need to thank again: Robin Burcell, former cop and present writer, and FBI Agent George Fong, who were great about answering my questions about security and bomb disposal. I appreciate the input of Sam Saucedo, the former newscaster and now writer, who explained a few things about border politics to me.I also need to thank S. J. Rozan, who was happy to answer my questions about architecture, though the vampire part was a distinct shock. I may have misused the information given me, but it was in a good cause. As always, I owe a great debt to my friend Toni L. P. Kelner, who read my first draft without laughing in my face. And my new continuity person, Debi Murray, gets a tip of the hat; from now on if I make mistakes, I have someone to blame. I owe a lot to the many wonderful readers who visit my website(www.charlaineharris.com)and leave messages of encouragement and interest. Beverly Batillo, my fan club president, has given me a boost many a time when I was down in the dumps.

We really are all ready: we have tickets to the True Blood Paleyfest panel discussion, airline reservations, our hotel and car rented ... YIPPEE! The lovely Nocturnalinnc and my traveling buddy, ObjectDesire will be traveling in "Team Dallas "

I have been in contact with about 15 others who I know from wiki, the blog or the radio show who will also be there and I am collecting contact info for the various teams and individuals who'd like to maybe meetup with some other fans.

We are planning at least 2 meetups while there, if you are going and want to know about the meetups send me an email !

This first line in this email is actually a line from a Sookie book, I got this wonderful email recently from RFlatstone.

Hey Dallas,

I noticed this ...

“My bags are packed…” I sang.

“Well, I’m not so lonesome, I could cry,” Amelia said.

All Together Dead, chapter 8These are a reference to the first and last line, respectively, of the first verse of the Peter, Paul and Mary song “Leaving on a Jet Plane.

Thanks Flat ! Well, it's a song popularized by Peter, Paul & Mary and from their 1969 album called, Album 1700. It was however, written by John Denver in 1967.

The stanza is:

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to goI'm standing here outside your doorI hate to wake you up to say goodbyeBut the dawn is breakin, its early mornThe taxis waiting, hes blowin his hornAlready I'm so lonesome I could cry.

The darkness will do you and the whole world some good ( Thank God, our iPhones and BlackBerrys will still work!)

For the first time in history, people of all ages, nationalities, race and background have the opportunity to use their light switch as their vote – Switching off your lights is a vote for Earth, or leaving them on is a vote for global warming. WWF are urging the world to VOTE EARTH and reach the target of 1 billion votes, which will be presented to world leaders at the Global Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen 2009.

Earth Hour began in Sydney in 2007, when 2.2 million homes and businesses switched off their lights for one hour. In 2008 the message had grown into a global sustainability movement, with 50 million people switching off their lights. Global landmarks such as the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Rome’s Colosseum, the Sydney Opera House and the Coca Cola billboard in Times Square all stood in darkness.

In 2009, Earth Hour is being taken to the next level, with the goal of 1 billion people switching off their lights as part of a global vote. Unlike any election in history, it is not about what country you’re from, but instead, what planet you’re from. VOTE EARTH is a global call to action for every individual, every business, and every community. A call to stand up and take control over the future of our planet. Over 74 countries and territories have pledged their support to VOTE EARTH during Earth Hour 2009, and this number is growing everyday.

VOTE EARTH by simply switching off your lights for one hour, and join the world for Earth Hour.Saturday, March 28, 8:30-9:30pm. Find our MORE HERE

Spatula blog in New Zealand nails it with his descritpon of True Blood ...

This week in television shows: We've finally gotten the HBO TV series "True Blood" on the air down here, starring New Zealand's very own Oscar-winning Anna Paquin, whom I must say has, er, filled out since "The Piano." I've only seen two episodes so far but I rather dig this new spin on the vampire mythology by "Six Feet Under" creator Alan Ball. Brief synopsis: thanks to the invention of a "blood substitute" drink, vamps have come out of the closet and are trying to integrate into human society, and "True Blood" focuses on one small Louisiana town's reaction to the vampires in their midst. Paquin is quite good, doing a decent Southern accent, and I like the way the very adults-only show straddles bloody Gothic camp and psychological depth. The satire of other minority movements is great ("God hates fangs" reads one sign). It really captures the relaxed, sultry yet tense feeling of the American South without descending into caricature. (The South is frequently larger than life, and "True Blood" is honest there.)

Maybe I'll make some of these for our local True Blood/Sookie Stackhouse book club meeting the night after Book 9, 'Dead and Gone 'comes out...

I knew I wanted a white cupcake (vampires are pale, after all) and had a recipe in mind to use already. The question that remained to be answered was how I was going to decorate it. There are a ton of articles, primarily in family-oriented magazines, that describe how to make a cartoony vampire faceon top of a cupcake. I rifled through them feeling unsatisfied. Then I found a picture of some cupcakes on a blog called horror gourmet that really struck a chord with me and I decided to make a cupcake that not only looked like it had been bitten into by a vampire, but that would bleed when you bit into it.

I baked my cupcakes, used the cupcake-filling technique I used on my devil’s food cupcakes to fill the cakes up with pureed cherry pie filling (canned or homemade) and topped them off with white icing to best accentuate the red bite marks. I made the marks using a skewer dipped in leftover cherry filling, making sure to leave a clear impression of a fang bite, rather than just a red streak on top of the cake.

The result was even better than I could have hoped for. They looked fantastic and tasted even better. The cherry filling worked surprisingly well in the vanilla cupcake and didn’t get absorbed by the cake at all, so it stayed nice a runny even after two days (how long the batch lasted before being devoured). The recipe makes 18 cupcakes, but you will probably have leftover filling and frosting, especially if you opt for canned cherry pie filling, so feel free to bake up a second batch to use everything up.

Puree cherry pie filling - a syrupy mix of sugar and cherries, usually - in a food processor until fairly smooth. Very small pieces of cherries are ok.(A photo how-to of the assembly method can be found on page link below ) Take a cooled cupcake and, using a small pairing knife, cut a cone of cake (1-inch across by 1-inch deep) out of the top. Trim off the pointy end of the cone, leaving a flat circle of cake. Set aside and repeat this process for all the cupcakes.Take the cherry filling and spoon about tablespoon or so into each cupcake cavity, filling it almost to the top with filling. Top off with the flat circle of cake you just removed to seal the hole and hold the “blood” filling in place.

Whisk sugar, egg whites, 1/3 cup water, light corn syrup, and cream of tartar in large metal bowl to blend. Set bowl over saucepan of barely simmering water (do not allow bottom of bowl to touch simmering water). Using handheld electric mixer, beat on medium speed until mixture resembles soft marshmallow fluff, about 5-7 minutes.Increase mixer speed to high and beat until mixture is very smooth and thick, about 3 minutes longer. Remove bowl from over simmering water. Add vanilla extract and continue beating until marshmallow frosting is completely cool, about 5-7 minutes longer.

AssemblyUsing a butter knife or a small offset spatula, frost each cupcake with a layer of the cooled marshmallow frosting by placing a dollop of icing in the center of the cupcake (on top of the cut out circle of cake) and spreading from the center to the sides of the cupcake.Dip a wooden toothpick or skewer into some leftover cherry pie filling and poke two fang-holes, about 3/4 inch apart, in the frosting on one side of the cupcake. Dribble a little extra filling from the holes for effect.Repeat until all cupcakes are frosted and decorated. You will probably have frosting leftover for another batch if you are baking more.

Michael Bell has spent the past twenty years tracking down vampires in the cemeteries of southern Rhode Island, northern Connecticut, and Vermont. His book, Food for the Dead: On the Trail of New England's Vampires (2001) documents his journey into the dimly lit world of nineteenth-century vampire practice, where, when one's children began to die from a mysterious, crippling disease, it sometimes became necessary to exhume the bodies of the dead, find out which one was possessed, cut out the heart of the corpse, burn it to ashes, and feed it to the living in order to put an end to the vampire's reign. Although Bell's vampires never wore capes, hissed, or even bothered to leave the grave, he maintains that they were much more terrifying than the monster we've become familiar with through movies and television. "They killed their kin while still lying, apparently dead, inside their coffins," he says. "How can you escape from something like that?"

More terrifying, perhaps, is that when I met Bell at a small restaurant around the corner from my house, he looked so much like a vampire hunter-at least, the way a proper vampire hunter should look-that I hesitated to call him over to my table. He is a narrow, handsome man who radiates a vehemence not unlike Christopher Plummer in his turn as Dr. Van Helsing in Wes Craven's Dracula 2000. It is so easy to picture him, wooden stake in hand, struggling atop a mound of freshly dug soil with a shrieking, reanimated corpse, that I found it difficult to focus on the interview at all. But some two hours later, I know a few things I did not know before. The good news:The golden age of the vampire seems to be over. The bad news: You may be alive today only because a distant relative ate the charred remains of a possessed family member.

A mother-daughter writing team from Tulsa, Okla., is driving a stake through Stephenie Meyer's stranglehold on teenage vampire fiction. P.C. Cast, 48, and Kristin Cast, 22, recently released Marked, the fifth book in their House of Night series, which debuted at No. 1 on The Wall Street Journal's fiction best-seller list. The series revolves around Zoey and her crew of fledgling vampires who serve the Goddess of Night Nyx. The Casts were in Toronto this week for book store appearances. They spoke with David Lipson about completing each other's sentences, raging hormones, and good vs. evil. Why is teen paranormal fiction so big right now?

P.C. I think vampire teen fiction is especially hot right now because teenagers identify with vampires. Vampires think they are immortal; teenagers think they are immortal ... A blood lust could equate to the flooding of hormones that teenagers get. Teenagers really identify with them. They identify with having to overcome these huge emotional obstacles and these desires – and they think they are immortal.

Tickets are also available at:Alteration Nation3341 SE Hawthorne Blvd, Portland503-234-2045

What is the VMB . . .

It's a night of elegance, decadence, and prestige that is exclusively held one night a year in the city of Portland, OR. It's our local goth/industrial community's night to shine! Complete with regional vendors, dj's, performers, professional event photographers, and catering (cheeses, breads, meats, desserts, chocolate fountains, etc). The success of the prior six years with attendance now exceeding 800 will ensure the 7th Annual Vampire's Masquerade Ball will be sure to impress.

Using "vampire" in the name is meant to touch on dark romanticism, having an appreciation for all that we find beautiful in the gothic community. While this event is not put on by the vampire community itself, to date they have been very supportive and are very welcome to attend.

Being that this is a formal gothic/industrial event (and not to be confused for a costume party) the majority of attendees are of that subculture. The diversity this night encourages can be easily seen in the attire of those who attend. You will encounter individuals from such genres as romantic goth, death rock, fetish, corporate goth, industrial, victorian, edwardian, steam punk, etc. Although masks are encouraged, they are not required.